Politics isn’t child’s play, they say. No, it can be a pretty nasty business (which sometimes makes me question my fascination with it). Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his running mate Nicole Shanahan can attest to that, as Shanahan notes in a recent interview with Tom Bilyeu on his Impact Theory podcast.
There are rumors that Kennedy is about to drop out of the race. Now he has announced that he wants to give a speech in Phoenix, Arizona on Friday afternoon.
RFK Jr. Camp says he is considering dropping out of the race,
but sends mixed messages about what happens next
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to address the nation on Friday – Will he join Team Trump?
Initially, there were rumors that RFK Jr. was in talks with both the Trump and Harris campaigns, but Shanahan set the record straight in a fairly candid conversation with Bilyeu. The full video, which runs just under an hour, can be viewed below, but Bilyeu posted the relevant snippet to his X account on Tuesday to give those rumors some context.
As clips go viral from @RobertKennedyJr ‘s VP @NicoleShanahan to announce on my show that they are considering leaving and @realDonaldTrumphere is a longer clip that provides full context. pic.twitter.com/f7cN36q5VO
— Tom Bilyeu (@TomBilyeu) 20 August 2024
Shanahan gets to the heart of the matter at about 2:30, but here is an excerpt from their exchange:
BILYEU: OK, there have been rumors that RFK is in talks with Trump, that he’s in talks with the Harris camp to support either of them if they could, I guess, give him a spot in one of their cabinets – is there any truth to that? Would love to hear about it.
SHANAHAN: Definitely not in conversations with Harris. Definitely never broached the idea of ​​supporting Harris. Definitely never broached a Cabinet position with Harris. So this is the mainstream media just taking something and spinning it in a way that makes their chosen political group look good – imitation news.
With that being said, we’ve offered to everybody to talk about what your policies are, who’s going to be in your cabinet. Do you want to hear our views on policy and what might work? We’re very proud to have made our platform open source. And I can say that Trump is showing real, genuine interest in our policies on chronic disease. He’s taking it seriously. For that reason, I think it’s our duty to sit down and see if we can actually make a real change. And if that’s a “unity party,” I think we absolutely owe it to the American public – to explore that.
BILYEU: What would a united party look like?
SHANAHAN: I think from day one we would make sure that our health care system – the health arm of the government, HHS – is run by someone we can trust, someone with no ties to the pharmaceutical industry, someone who understands the fundamentals and requirements of fit living, someone who is not going to sell our children to profiteers.
Now things get particularly captivating.
BILYEU: OK, when would you make that decision? There’s obviously a lot of concern that you guys could be considered spoiler candidates, and I understand there’s going to be a public message, but I’m very curious to hear your thoughts on that.
SHANAHAN: We didn’t start this campaign – I didn’t invest tens of millions of dollars – to be a candidate and spoil the election. I invested tens of millions of dollars to win – to fix this country, to do the right thing.
I will say that Clear Choice — this PAC, this DNC-allied PAC — that was created specifically to take us out, spent millions of dollars to take us out. They unfortunately made us a spoilsport. And we don’t want to be a spoilsport. We wanted to win. We wanted a fair shot. The DNC made that impossible for us. They banned us, secretly banned us, kept us off the stages, rigged polls, filed appeals against us, sued us in every state possible. They even planted insiders in our campaign to disrupt it and actually cause us legal problems. And I mean, the level of sabotage that they brought upon us is staggering. I mean, we’re still learning modern ways that they sabotaged us.
I really wanted a fair chance in this election and I believed in the America that I – [as] a little girl – pledged allegiance. And that’s not, that’s not where we are today. And that’s not because the Republican Party threw us out. It’s entirely because the Democratic Party threw us out. And I’m so disappointed that I ever helped them. I’m so disappointed that I helped Chuck Schumer secure a majority in that Georgia runoff. That’s probably one of the biggest mistakes of my life. And it’s really devastating.
To answer your question, we don’t want to be spoilsports — that was never our motivation. We really wanted a fair chance. I think if we had had a fair chance, we would have won. I would still like to see a miracle happen in the last 80 days of this election and we get a chance to debate — I don’t think they’re going to let us. And, you know, with that in mind, I think we have to be very stern about making sure that the people who have corrupted our fair and free democracy don’t end up in office in November. It’s tough — I mean, it’s really tough, Tom, to say those words, because it also means acknowledging how bad things are.
As it stands, we won’t know what the campaign will accomplish until Friday, and it’s tough to quantify how Kennedy’s endorsement might lend a hand (or hurt) Trump. But I think both Kennedy and Shanahan could be effective voices in denouncing the corruption of the Democratic Party, and I suspect Trump is taking all of that into consideration as he plans the final weeks of the campaign.
